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Sonic Expressions of Cosmological Awareness: A Comparative Study of Funeral Rituals Among Han Chinese Living in the Yangzi River Valley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Qi Kun
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Extract

At the eighth conference of the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research (CHIME), the topic of my presentation was funeral ritual music in southern Anhui province, located just to the west of Shanghai. I played a video clip showing the sights and sounds of a typical funeral. After my presentation, Frank Kouwenhoven, the Dutch co-founder of CHIME, asked: “Why are there so many kinds of music at Chinese funerals?” It would be inconceivable, he pointed out, to have what in Chinese we term “hot and noisy” (renao—see list of Chinese characters) sounds of this type at a western funeral. Kouwenhoven did a lot of fieldwork in China and knew Chinese traditional music well. So his question not only commented on the multiformity of sounds in Chinese funerals, but also helped me to rethink the capacity of rituals for including so many sounds, and the difference between eastern and western cultures.

Abstract in chinese

Abstract in Chinese

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 46 , 2014 , pp. 159 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by the International Council for Traditional Music

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References

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